Civilization III: Play the World

When Civ3 first came out, I was surprised (and disappointed) that it did not include multiplayer support. Naturally when I heard about this expansion, I was rather excited. Unfortunately, they did a poor job of it. I've tried to play about 5-10 times over the LAN at work. On one or two occasions, it worked without any major problems. However, the majority of the time we get "resynch errors" that kill the game (although it thankfully saves it first). I've noticed annoying bugs, like the fact I need to restart the game if I cancel out of the setup screen for multiplayer. >p< As for the gameplay, they did add some interesting twists like Regicide (you have a primary unit; if it dies, you lose). Unfortunately, there are occasional pauses in the game, which is very annoying if you happen to be trying to do something (e.g. refer to the civlopedia or set your tax rate). The interface enhancements were a nice touch, although it would have been nice to have them in a patch for the original civ3. >p< If the multiplayer was more stable, I would have rated this much higher. If it wasn't for the interface improvements, it would have been a 5 at best. They mucked this up. Even after the first patch (to 1.04f) the game is still to bug-riddled.